Thursday, June 12, 2008

Andy brings the heat! AGAIN!

I love Ridge Church. I have spent some time reflecting and digging into my calling and passions in the last few weeks, and I couldn't be more excited and passionate about what God is up to in Charlotte and the role Ridge Church has the privilege of playing in that story. What a privilege and enormous responsibilty it is to lead this church! One that I don't take lightly.

We also have the cool privilege of being in a partnership with North PointCommunity Church, founded by Andy Stanley. In my humble opinion he is the most gifted communicator of our generation. He is also an incredible writer. He has written countless books and many of them have been shaping forces in the lives of some of my generations' strongest and most influential leaders.

Just three quick excerpts from a recent talk he did for a couple of thousand church leaders from around the country. Unbelievable talk and crazy challenging for me as a leader:

1. "We [the church and Christians] can be so cautious that we are behind; so careful that we become irrelevant..."

2. "We must decide what is more important creating a great organization or a great name for ourselves. To create a great organization we must SERVE. To create a great name for ourselves we simply continue to be SERVED."

3. "The local church rarely gets serious about change until they run out of money...we are pre-occupied with paying bills not reaching the un-churched. As long as money is coming in and bills are being paid, churches rarely get desperate enough to make changes that they need to make."One last thought. If "Snoop Dogg" reads Andy's books you should too!